This is my music, part 1: Cosmic synth trips by Lunar Miasma

I know update this blog with olympic frequency, but now I have this idea for a series of posts that might actually motivate me to generate some worthwhile content. The idea is I’ll pick a genre I listen to and an artist to represent it, and then present a few key recordings and tell you why you need to hear them. We’ll start this exercise with Greek synth shaman Panos Alexiadis, a.k.a. Lunar Miasma.

The first thing you’ll notice if you trawl the Lunar Miasma discography is that the vast majority of his releases are on tape. Yes, cassette tape. Yes, it is indeed 2012. I’m pretty sure his recordings are digital somewhere in the production chain, so it’s not due to some analog puritanism. Rather, it’s part cheap-as-hell production costs for small runs and a rather more romantic format than CDr. While tapes have plenty of well known sonic limitations, everything from Lunar Miasma sounds pretty damn good considering the format. So don’t be deterred—dig out your old tape deck from the attic and get tripping.

And boy do I mean tripping. This is pretty much synth trip music perfected, as far as I’m concerned. The mood, progression, textures and arrangement is totally spot on. He steers clear of of the gag-inducingly cheesy new age slush that permeates so much of ambient music, yet achieves amazing emotional impact. If you like old Berlin school stuff like Schulze (tracks like Crystal Lake, from thew Mirage LP) you’re in for a treat. Since his releases are seldom produced in more than 100 copies they can be pretty tricky to get ahold of, but check Discogs and the labels own sites.